This is for the security of your network, not just that computer. WITH those tools, COMES the security -- even Windows has its share of security tools.

I wonder how this will fare against Knoppix STD? Knoppix, as the world knows, is an awesome LiveCD distro of Linux that comes with an assortment of tools. This... just seems to come with a lot more. I guess it just matters about that user-friendliest though, as an Elite Linux user could boot up with Slackware CD 2, the LiveCD and do just as much or more. But yet, Slackware is as user friendly as a rabid wolf.

I was wondering the same thing. The great thing about Knoppix STD, at least as far as I am concerned, is Knoppix's awesome auto-hardware recognition. I use a PDA with a WLAN CF card and carry a Knoppix STD CD that I use on the next available system to follow up on irregularities while doing network analysis.

And Knoppix STD (security tools distribution, just to clear that up;) works flawlessly on even the oldest and most exotic systems. I haven't personally used LAS Linux but the degree of flexibility Knopp

I was going to reply to this with something witty since I work for Best Buy as an In-Store Technician, and use Linux LiveCDs on a daily basis... I have never had customers complain about the speed of it, but more about cool it is to run directly from CD and rescue their files.

"Designed for a minidisc" really just means that they're intentionally limiting themselves to fit on the smaller disc. Of course, you can always decompress an ISO image to a larger disc than needed and have leftover space...

Ah, if only I had mini disks to burn it to. Guess it'll have to go on my 2 cent full size ones instead. Such a waste, when I could put it on a 1 cent one! Wow, 8 comments and the site's already down. Are they running the server off one of these mini-cds?

Don't know if Black hats use it, but, I did to fix a virus problem on a MS based machine. Picked out the problems and cleaned it up enough for us to do a backup. The site seems to be down when I checked yesterday.

I think the key difference is that this is a White Hat tool, while PHLAK is meant for people weariing Black Hats...

I disagree. The only "black hat tools" imo are rootkits and the like. Everything else, to and including password crackers and vulnerability scanners, is just as much an auditing tool as it is a cracking tool.

Having used both distros, PHLAK has a little bit more style to it. I don't get the impresion that they made it for black hat uses, but wannabe blackhats may gravitate to it. You gott

I was wondering the same thing. This isnt related to PHLAK. I run PHLACK under vmware, but im not really too impressed with it, and think it has a long way to go. As far as blackhats use that, whitehats use this, etc, I'm not buying it. People will use whatever tool supports there needs the most. I will try this out, but when it comes down to it, a skilled person with just a few tools can probably do as much as someone with hundreds. Personally, if I could have 1 tool, it would probably be NETCAT.

... and I liked it. So did a coworker, who then stole it. There's irony in there somewhere...

Some other good Security LiveCD distros are Knoppix STD [knoppix-std.org] and P.H.L.A.K. But I mainly use Knoppix (which also has kismet [kismetwireless.net] and nmap [insecure.org]), and when I want speed, SLAX [linux-live.org] is very good.

I have used Knoppix STD and PHLAK and have found Knoppix STD to be the superior system. PHLAK, if my memory serves, is actually based on Knoppix STD and it seems that the only thing they did was to strip off some of the things in STD that weren't security related and tack on a bunch of cracking programs and many cracking related tutorials. It might be nice to put on another box and test the security of your network.

Ive recently started administering more and more server 2003 environments and I feel the microsoft security auditing tool isn't that sexy and Id love an easy scan. Im too lazy to just look myself (oh the irony) so maybe someone here knows?

I mean, nmap is always useful but I know my ports are solid so what else on there isn't *nix specific?

Yeah, security all right. I'm sure 99% of the 14 year old skript kiddiez making and downloading these things are "security" minded.

And thus, I want a copy. As others have joked, by the very definition of a "skript kiddie" (unskilled cracker dependent on the tools of others), something like this is way out of their league. But I assume you might have meant, "People who do illegal things to computers who could use such a convenient CD where all the free tools online are in one place."

Well, they are going to do use it, whether it's wrong or not, and if LAS doesn't do it, someone else will (and has). And I want the same tools to test my firewalls and stuff to make SURE that it's hard to break into my network. Nothing will ever be hack-proof, but if you can make it hard for illegal entry, the crook will look elsewhere for something easier. And tools like these give me the same tools the crooks have, and the advantage I have is that I don't need time to "sniff" for anything to deduce which items to crack, since I already know what machines are senistive. I can just use an Ethereal capture pointed at an IP or MAC and see what it's sending out. Try and hack my own wireless connection with Kismet. And so on.

It's all in intent, and how you use it. I use tools like thse to trace stray DHCP servers, look for illegal Kazaa use, or find out who's trying to hack my firewall.

A prybar is not illegal. Forcing open a loose door on property you don't own or beating someone to death with it is illegal. But you don't see people banning prybars at Home Depot.

I'm only about 10% down downloading from the UDel site, but I've noticed that my speed seems to keep dropping. I use BitTorrent often to download stuff, but I have no experience in creating a torrent. Can someone post a link on how to create a torrent? (Do I need a lot of initial bandwidth? I'm only on a cable modem.)

it is well worth bookmarking distrowatch [distrowatch.com]. Very good for news on all the latest distro's with information on all major distros including live cd's, usb keys, big cd's wee cd's and all of that. Has a useful weekly roundup of distro news.

I wonder if people are becoming less distro-religous since most distros seem to work well. anyway, after reading distrowatch for a while you'll no doubt become a distro-tart and try all out 101 live cd's like L.A.S.

How ironic - I was just using my 210MB version L.A.S Linux on a friend's computer and noticed this article. One thing I really like about L.A.S - integrated ClamAV. So, on someone elses computer that's totally hosed, I can boot off of L.A.S. and scan their hard drive for viruses. Plus, with the mini-CD size, it's easy to keep a copy in my glovebox/computer case/etc. for emergencies.

No, it's not a replacement for Knoppix STD, but it's a nice complement.

Great, this fits on a minidisk and is updated twice a month. What a PERFECT use for CDRW minidisks. Except I cannot find them anywhere. Does anyone make such a beast? Is there some technical reason why all the minidisks I can find are all CDR?

Beware: some CD drives refuse to read some brands of CD-RWs. I have a drive, some rebranded Phillips, that when fed with a Verbatim mini-CDRW just "dies" and requires hard reset. Does that with all the CDRWs from the batch. Of course the same drive works flawlessly with Verbatim mini-CD-Rs.